


Threads That Bind

by m00nie



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Parental Abuse, vengeance is mine to be specific
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25918339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m00nie/pseuds/m00nie
Summary: Karai stays. But maybe that was for the worst.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Threads That Bind

Karai stays. Leo had looked so very hopeful. 

There was a deep-set desire in her to just have some  _ support. _ To be held without worrying about the price for it later. Make jokes, be mean, but still loved. 

Someone who wouldn’t starve her.

Someone who didn’t beat her, or tell her how she was the missing piece in this messed-up destiny she was finding hard for her mother to wish upon her. 

\----

It started nice enough. 

They’d harass Mikey, but that was just siblings, right? Telling Don nobody cared had to be in jest. Taunting Raph until he exploded and hurt others was normal. 

She didn’t spend much time with anybody. Training, yes. Maybe tea with father. They’d watch movies together sometimes. 

But the sewers were awfully cold, it felt like.

\-----

“It was an accident Sensei-” Karai watched Michelangelo plead in the dojo, her and her brothers hiding behind the doorway. 

Splinter hit his cane down hard on the floor. Everyone flinched. “How many times will you say that again, my son? Your careless acts grow by the day and I tire of it. You need to learn to  _ think. _ You need to learn responsibility and consequences-”

“I’m sorry,” he was bowing down by Splinter’s feet. She could hear his uneven breathing.

“Stop groveling. You are no longer a child. I expect more of you. Your  _ team _ expects more of you. What if you get someone killed?”

No reply. 

“You will start getting rid of all the distractions in your life today, my son. And your training will be more intense. You have to mature at some point.”

\------

She and April sat together on a rooftop. She didn’t even like the girl, but she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without a chaperone. Fear of the foot, on one hand, the fact Leo told Splinter of her near escape on the other.

Karai swung her feet idly off the edge. “So.”

“So,” the redhead replied.

“What do you think about Splinter, anyway?”

“He’s like a second father to me,” April sat down next to Karai, legs tucked under her neatly, “there were so many times where I lost my own father. I don't know where I’d be without him,” she sighed.

This subject would require delicacy, Karai thought.

“He ever hit you?”

But she didn’t care much for being delicate.

The redhead paused, a bit too long in Karai’s opinion, “while training.”

“You see what he does to the turtles?”

The girl paused again, and Karai just wanted to tell her to spit it out already. Splinter and Shredder were the same. Just say it. 

“I would of been homeless without him.”

“As would I.”

\-----

Over the weeks, things stay at an uncomfortable amount of familiarity. But, Karai learns that Mr. O’Neil is a psychologist. And with some meds, well. 

You don’t wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short drabble I had to write out. Might continue it if asked to enough or if I get enough inspo. Other WIP fics are being worked on!


End file.
